In a former colonial mansion in
Jamaica, politicians huddle to discuss trying to ease marijuana laws in
the land of the late reggae musician and cannabis evangelist Bob Marley.
In Morocco, one of the world's top producers of the concentrated pot
known as hashish, two leading political parties want to legalize its
cultivation, at least for medical and industrial use.
And in Mexico
City, the vast metropolis of a country ravaged by horrific cartel
bloodshed, lawmakers have proposed a brand new plan to let stores sell
the drug.
From the Americas to
Europe to North Africa and beyond, the marijuana legalization movement
is gaining unprecedented traction — a nod to successful efforts in
Colorado, Washington state and the small South American nation of
Uruguay, which in December became the first country to approve
nationwide pot legalization.
Leaders
long weary of the drug war's violence and futility have been emboldened
by changes in U.S. policy, even in the face of opposition from their
own conservative populations. Some are eager to try an approach that
focuses on public health instead of prohibition, and some see a
potentially lucrative industry in cannabis regulation.
"A
number of countries are saying, 'We've been curious about this, but we
didn't think we could go this route,'" said Sam Kamin, a University of
Denver law professor who helped write Colorado's marijuana regulations.
"It's harder for the U.S. to look at other countries and say, 'You can't
legalize, you can't decriminalize,' because it's going on here."
That's due largely to a White House that's more open to drug war alternatives.
U.S.
President Barack Obama recently told The New Yorker magazine that he
considers marijuana less dangerous to consumers than alcohol, and said
it's important that the legalization experiments in Washington and
Colorado go forward, especially because blacks are arrested for the drug
at a greater rate than whites, despite similar levels of use.
His
administration also has criticized drug war-driven incarceration rates
in the U.S. and announced that it will let banks do business with
licensed marijuana operations, which have largely been cash-only because
federal law forbids financial institutions from processing pot-related
transactions.
Such actions
underscore how the official U.S. position has changed in recent years.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it wouldn't target
medical marijuana patients. In August, the agency said it wouldn't
interfere with the laws in Colorado and Washington, which regulate the
growth and sale of taxed pot for recreational use.
Government
officials and activists worldwide have taken note of the more open
stance. Also not lost on them was the Obama administration's public
silence before votes in both states and in Uruguay.
It
all creates a "sense that the U.S. is no longer quite the drug
war-obsessed government it was" and that other nations have some
political space to explore reform, said Ethan Nadelmann, head of the
nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-legalization group based in New
York.
Anxiety
over U.S. reprisals has previously doused reform efforts in Jamaica,
including a 2001 attempt to approve private use of marijuana by adults.
Given America's evolution, "the discussion has changed," said Delano
Seiveright, director of Ganja Law Reform Coalition-Jamaica.
Last
summer eight lawmakers, evenly split between the ruling People's
National Party and the opposition Jamaica Labor Party, met with
Nadelmann and local cannabis crusaders at a luxury hotel in Kingston's
financial district and discussed next steps, including a near-term
effort to decriminalize pot possession
.
Officials
are concerned about the roughly 300 young men each week who get
criminal records for possessing small amounts of "ganja." Others in the
debt-shackled nation worry about losing out on tourism dollars: For
many, weed is synonymous with Marley's home country, where it has long
been used as a medicinal herb by families, including as a cold remedy,
and as a spiritual sacrament by Rastafarians.
Influential
politicians are increasingly taking up the idea of loosening pot
restrictions. Jamaica's health minister recently said he was "fully on
board" with medical marijuana.
"The
cooperation on this issue far outweighs what I've seen before,"
Seiveright said. "Both sides are in agreement with the need to move
forward."
In
Morocco, lawmakers have been inspired by the experiments in Washington,
Colorado and Uruguay to push forward their longstanding desire to allow
cannabis to be grown for medical and industrial uses. They say such a
law would help small farmers who survive on the crop but live at the
mercy of drug lords and police attempts to eradicate it.
"Security
policies aren't solving the problem because it's an economic and social
issue," said Mehdi Bensaid, a legislator with the Party of Authenticity
and Modernity, a political party closely allied with the country's
king. "We think this crop can become an important economic resource for
Morocco and the citizens of this region."
In
October, lawmakers from Uruguay, Mexico and Canada converged on
Colorado for a firsthand look at how that state's law is being
implemented. They toured a medical marijuana dispensary and sniffed
bar-coded marijuana plants as the dispensary's owner gave them a tour.
"Mexico has outlets like that, but guarded by armed men," Mexican Congressman René Fujiwara Montelongo said afterward.
There's
no general push to legalize marijuana in Mexico, where tens of
thousands have died in cartel violence in recent years. But in liberal
Mexico City, legislators on Thursday introduced a measure to let stores
sell up to 5 grams of pot. It's supported by the mayor but could set up a
fight with the conservative federal government.
"Rather
than continue fighting a war that makes no sense, now we are joining a
cutting-edge process," said Jorge Castaneda, a former Mexican foreign
minister.
Opponents to
legalization worry that pot could become heavily commercialized or that
increased access will increase youth use. They say the other side's
political victories have reawakened their cause.
"There's been a
real hunger from people abroad to find out how we got ourselves into
this mess in the first place and how to avoid it," said Kevin Sabet of
Project Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
Washington
and Colorado passed recreational laws in 2012 to regulate the growth
and sale of taxed pot at state-licensed stores. Sales began Jan. 1 in
Colorado, and are due to start later this year in Washington. Twenty
states and the District of Columbia already have medical marijuana laws.
A
number of U.S. states are considering whether to try for recreational
laws. Voters in Alaska will have their say on a legalization measure
this summer. Oregon voters could also weigh in this year, and in
California, drug-reform groups are deciding whether to push a ballot
measure in 2014 or wait until 2016's presidential election. Abroad,
activists are pushing the issue before a United Nations summit in 2016.
While
some European countries, including Spain, Belgium and the Czech
Republic, have taken steps over the years to liberalize pot laws in the
face of international treaties that limit drug production to medical and
research purposes, the Netherlands, famous for its pot "coffee shops,"
has started to pull back, calling on cities to close shops near schools
and ban sales to tourists.
There
is, however, an effort afoot to legitimize the growing of cannabis sold
in the coffee shops. While it's been legal to sell pot, it's not to
grow it, so shops must turn to the black market for their supply, which
may wind up seized in a raid.
In
Latin America and the Caribbean, where some countries have
decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs, from cocaine to
marijuana, there is significant public opposition to further
legalization. But top officials are realizing that it is nevertheless on
the table, despite the longstanding efforts of the U.S., which has
provided billions of dollars to support counter-narcotics work in the
hemisphere.
Current or former
presidents in Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil have called for a
re-evaluation of or end to the drug war, a chorus echoed by Argentina's
drug czar, Juan Carlos Molina, a Roman Catholic priest who has long
served in the nation's drug-wasted slums.
Molina said he's
following orders from President Cristina Fernandez to change the
government's focus from enforcing drug laws against young people to
getting them into treatment. He also said after Fernandez appointed him
in December that Argentine society is ready to openly debate legalizing
marijuana altogether.
"I
believe that Argentina deserves a good debate about this. We have the
capacity to do it. The issue is fundamental for this country," Molina
said in an interview with Radio del Plata.
The
pace of change has put American legalization activists in heavy demand
at conferences in countries weighing their drug laws, including Chile,
Poland and the Netherlands. The advocates, including those who worked on
the efforts in Washington and Colorado, have advised foreign lawmakers
and activists on how to build campaigns.
Clara
Musto, a spokeswoman for the Uruguayan campaign, said meeting with the
Americans helped her group see that it would need to promote arguments
beyond ensuring the liberty of cannabis users if it wanted to increase
public support. "They knew so much about how to lead," she said.
John
Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America, a non-governmental
organization that works to promote social and economic justice, was
among the Americans who visited Uruguay as the president, the ruling
party and activists pushed their proposal to create a
government-controlled marijuana industry.
"This
isn't just talk," he said. "Whether Colorado is going to do it well, or
Washington, they're doing it. If you're going to pursue something
similar, you're not going to be alone."
___
AP
writers David McFadden in Kingston, Jamaica; Eduardo Castillo in Mexico
City; Leonardo Haberkorn in Montevideo, Uruguay; Michael Corder in The
Hague, The Netherlands; Michael Warren in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and
Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco; Adriana Gomez Licon in Mexico City; and
Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed.
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